Pages

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Ohio Fragments of the Gospel of Judas

I have been intending to write about this subject since New Orleans, but I got sick and had so many family obligations over break that I haven't had a clear moment to do so.

The Ohio Fragments of the Gospel of Judas are coming to light. In New Orleans, Professor Meyer distributed initial transcriptions of the fragments which were made by he and Professor Wurst last year from photographs they have access to. My understanding is that very soon the fragments will be moved to Europe and rephotographed, and those photographs will be distributed to scholars working on the Gospel of Judas.

Professor Meyer has kindly uploaded his SBL talk, transcriptions and translations of the fragments to his official website HERE.

I don't want to say too much about the fragments, because I do not yet have access to the photographs which I will need to make my own transcription and translation. I have put together a seminar here at Rice to begin this work with my graduate students, and hope that the photos will be available very soon.

From the transcription done by Meyer and Wurst, it appears that Jesus is the one who ascends in the cloud at the end of the gospel and Judas is left behind on the ground looking at him, only to betray him a few lines later, fulfilling the fate of his ignorant star.

According to Epiphanius' Panarion 30.16, he quotes a line from the gospel used by the Ebionites that says: "[Jesus said] 'I am come to abolish the sacrifices: if ye cease not from sacrificing, the wrath (of God) will not cease from weighing upon you'". Depending on how reliable Epiphanius was and who the earliest Ebionites were, provisions against animal sacrifice might have been a staple of early Christians.